PETER Clark, Bolton's HIV co-ordinator, is a man who doesn't mince words and he is absolutely right when he says that more than scare tactics are needed to hammer home the dangers of HIV and AIDS.

The mere fact that Bolton has the highest number of heterosexually transmitted HIV cases in the whole of Greater Manchester and that cases have doubled in the past year is scary enough.

For years, HIV and AIDS were thought of as something for only homosexual males to worry about.

The news that AIDS was spreading was dismissed with a kind of "serves the gays right" attitude by many heterosexuals in the Freddie Mercury era.

Now, the entire population has no option but to sit up and take very serious notice that AIDS and HIV are afflicting mankind, whatever their gender or sexual preferences.

And if this dreadful scourge is not halted, we could soon have a situation like some African countries where babies are often born with AIDS.

Peter Clark believes people have become blase -- and that, he says, is frightening. Sexually active teenagers are not being given the kind of AIDS education Mr Clark would like to see. And they are not taking precautions to lessen the chances of the infection being transmitted.

But he is right to doubt whether there is anything to be gained by grim reaper tactics like those of the 80s.

People sometimes switch off when they are bombarded with horror, as they have been with the years of gruesome drink driving images.

The simple fact that there are now 74 people in Bolton with HIV and that it is spreading through the heterosexual population is grim enough. Easy targets IT seems only yesterday that churches in Bolton were walk-in sanctuaries that never locked their doors.

Now they are having to be turned into fortresses to repel the low life who seem to regard church buildings as soft targets for their daily bread.

Nothing is sacred any more and 57 crimes of various kinds have been reported at Bolton's churches in the past six months.

Police believe that one reason for the sprialling crime is that thieves are turning to easier targets because of increasing home security.

It's sad that it has come to this. But the only answer is for churches to match it.